Duane: Well, the overall Internet response to my SPIRIT OF ATLANTIS website presentation is less than what I expected - however, a better response may soon be forthcoming. I have just recently discovered that my website HTML code needed "meta tags" near the beginning in order to be properly listed with the search engines. Three years ago, when I began writing the simple HTML code to my website, "meta tags" were not standardized enough so I never included them. Now, and apparently for some time, a website that doesn't included "meta tags" in the first few code lines will not be listed efficiently with most search engines - which can result a website being very hard to find when net surfers enter keywords or phrases in the search option box. Until recently, my SPIRIT OF ATLANTIS website contained no "meta tags" - so perhaps now some serious response from the Internet public may improve things.
Reporter 2: So now you expect better results from your Internet initiative because your website is better coded to be found and listed with the search engines. What kind of response do you expect from the Internet public?
Duane: Some book or CD orders would be nice - that way my expenses could be better met. Constructive feedback from knowledgeable scholars would also help improve the data behind my discoveries. One of the greatest things about the Internet medium is that it links people and their views from across the globe. Perhaps my scientific views will link up with several important persons whose views are similar and have strong connections with the news media. Actually, since I posted my website, I have expected the news media to advertise my discoveries - but, apparently my new and important scientific discoveries about Atlantis, which has been posted on the Internet for three years now, are not ready for prime time.
Reporter 2: Are you suggesting that the news media is ignoring your work for some reason? If so, why would they reject or ignore your scientific discoveries?
Duane: While I consider some of my scientific views to be important discoveries, others may still considered them unproven theories - which, like many other unproven theories, are not yet verifiable facts. And until such views become verifiable facts, respectable news gathering companies are likely to reject and ignore them. Any major news editor would be going "out on the limb" if they republished my scientific theories without some verification work. Since much of my scientific work is very complicated and would take time to verify, perhaps not enough time and resources have been allotted by editors who have read some of my work. Until the major news media companies discover the important views within my scientific work, I'll just assume that they don't know of or don't realize the historical value of the Atlantean subject.
Reporter 3: The Atlantean subject is also a mythical subject that is dated far in the past - far removed from the here and now and what is considered "news". In fact, conventional history portrays the subject of Atlantis as fiction - which, in effect, removes the subject from reality. How then do you expect the editor of any respectable news media company, which is in the business of reporting new facts, to report your mythical Atlantean theories?
Duane: Not all my Atlantean views are theories. Some are facts - such as my discovery of a lost binary alphabet from the neolithic age which can be found on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Linking this view with the mythical subject of Atlantis and its lost maritime Atlantean Civilization who used this lost binary alphabet is a new view that suggest the subject of Atlantis may not be fictional. My SPIRIT OF ATLANTIS book project and website are full of scientific examples which suggest verifiable facts that prove the existence of the Atlantean Civilization and the remarkable technology it once used. If an editor of a respectable news media company wants to edit out some of my scientific views and still publish or report the facts as he or she sees them - that's fine, that's what editors do. However, one doesn't have to believe in all my views not to see the facts in some.
Reporter 3: For the record, could you give us another example of factual evidence or a tangible artifact which suggest the Atlantean Civilization was real and not fiction?
Duane: OK... Let's take a view from one of Plato's Atlantean dialogues regarding a unique and valuable material substance mined or excavated within the Atlantean realm and compare it with some factual evidence of today. According to Plato, this unique and valuable material substance was called "orichalch". Used as a very durable decorative wall material within several Atlantean temples, it was said to "gleam like fire" at times. My scientific research into discovering what "orichalch" was - or is, suggest that a type of rose granite now called "alkaline feldspar granite" is this unique material substance. To quote entries from Volume 3, Chapter 10 of my SPIRIT OF ATLANTIS book project: "This special type of rose granite is an intrusive igneous variety that contains many rare-earth radioactive elements. The largest sarcophagus of Ramses Two was recently discovered near Cairo and was carved from this rose colored alkaline feldspar granite." The next entry states: "It is used today almost exclusively for the extraction of rare earth-bearing minerals and also as a building material when polished into decorative slabs. Large amounts of this unique rock can be found on the north coast of Brittany". Now, how do these old and new factual scientific views suggest the Atlantean Civilization was real and not fiction you ask? If Plato invented the idea of "orichalch" from the Atlantean realm from fiction, why then does such a unique and valuable material substance exist in reality? Because "orichalch" can be verified as a real substance - used even today as a rare building material and also as a material substance with special radioactive properties, perhaps other mythical views linked to Atlantis will also be verified as fact if one studies the subject properly.
Reporter 3: Wait a minute... Could you again explain the link between how your discovery of a type of granite rock described by Plato as a valuable mining material helps suggest the Atlantean subject is based on fact and not fiction?
Duane: Listen... The first fact is that Plato describes a "mythical substance" - which is to say many people believe he invented or imagined it. The second fact is that the substance can be found today and is quite real - just misunderstood and renamed. Link the two views together and they help suggest that the mythical subject of Atlantis is based on some misunderstood facts.
Reporter 3: So Plato described a type of rare granite rock when he described Atlantis. How does one set of factual views prove the existence of the popular view in which the subject of Atlantis is fiction?
Duane: Proving the existence of Atlantis will not come by one or two facts. It will take many facts that are linked together to reveal history's greatest mystery. My SPIRIT OF ATLANTIS book project is a collection of scientific views that attempts to do just that. An important view to understand is that the greater subject of Atlantis can be broken down into at least three different smaller subjects. The first is the Atlantean Continent, the second is the Atlantean Seaport, and the third is the Atlantean Civilization. Proving the existence of one Atlantean subject, whether it's the continent, the seaport or the civilization, is linked to proving the greater view that Atlantis was real and not fiction.
Reporter 2: It seems like what you are trying to say is that because the mythical subject of Atlantis has always been misunderstood by the general public, the real truth within the legend, for whatever reason, has never been exposed - and that the general public should better understand the legend and see the facts before they think of it as fiction. Is this view correct?
Duane : I couldn't of said it better!
Reporter 2: You said earlier that "orichalch" was a rare granite which had "special radioactive properties". Could you better explain your view about this unique and valuable material substance?
Duane: Many Atlantean historians still believe "orichalch" to be a kind of metal like brass. Moreover, Plato compared "orichalch" to other "products of the miner's industry, solid and fusible alike". So if this rose granite is solid, it may also be "fusible" too. Plato suggested that the city of Atlantis was caved out of stone by some kind of "lathe device" which may have used a lost form of "fusible technology". Perhaps "orichalch", which contains embedded radioactive rare-earth elements, can also be used as a fuel when added to the explosive plasma reaction of other burning metallic materials that spin as a cauterizing beam between two parabolic lenses of platinum. Such a scientific view suggest a lost "particle beam" technology was once used by our Atlantean ancestors to cut stone or other hard materials in antediluvian times.
Reporter 2: What evidence exist that would suggest the Atlanteans used this "particle beam" tool you have theorized?
Duane: Trying to imagine and describe a powerful tool design that was lost in Biblical times is indeed a challenge for any mind. I give numerous examples in my SPIRIT OF ATLANTIS book project as to how this remarkable tool design worked and was used by the Atlanteans, but finding evidence to prove these examples is not easy. Evidence of a lost form of "fusible technology" may help explain how the limestone blocks of the Great Pyramids near Cairo where cut. Even here in South Florida at a place called "Coral Castle", "fusible technology" may help explain how a man by the name of Edward Leedskalnin cut and moved huge coral limestone blocks around when he build his castle home some sixty years ago. One of his publications mentions how he used of some kind of "liquid fire" tool to cut the stone. How he leveraged and moved the large stone blocks into position also remains a mystery. If you really think about it, whosoever recreates this lost method of "splitting the stone" byway of fusing apart the rock would be considered quite the wizard. I've never seen it done in reality, but perhaps someday...
Reporter 2: Earlier, I asked you what kind of response do you expect from the Internet public regarding your website. Now I ask, what kind of response do you get from people when you attempt to explain your theoretical views like the one you just described?
Duane: Well... I basically receive one of the four following responses in no particular order. The first is wonderment, with little or no response. The second is bewilderment, with little or no response. The third is unbelievable - as in a "get out of here" response. And the fourth is excitement - as in a "tell me more" response. Another type of response I receive sometimes is the "so what" response - as in "I don't care if you showed me a glowing emerald the size of a grapefruit" response.
Reporter 3: What kind of response do you get from people when you attempt to explain your radical timeline views as in the idea that Christ lived only about seven centuries ago or that the Middle Ages lasted only about a hundred years instead of a thousand years?
Duane: If I presented my radical timeline theories the way you just gave them, the reaction or response from people would be typically a "get out of here" response. And not only would my timeline theories be thought as too radical to believe, but most all of my other Atlantean theories would also be rejected because most people have a habit of taking in new information and grouping the data as either fact or fiction. If one part of the data seems obviously fictional then the rest of the data is also grouped together as fictional. It's like one bad theory spoils the whole barrel of theories. Unless time is spent separating fact from fiction, most people will not understand the factual data within the assumed fictional data. My radical timeline theories may seem fictional, but understand how I discovered them in sequence and perhaps you too will see ancient history and the Middle Ages as lasting only about five centuries and not five millenniums.
Reporter 1: Radically changing the subject, I understand that when your not working with your publishing tools you are employed at CARIBBEAN WATERSPORTS in Key Largo as a enviro-tour captain. What's one of the most interesting animals you see on your tours in Florida Bay?
Duane: Dolphins and manatees are great animal encounters when they happen, but sometimes the tours miss them. Birds, like the osprey and Roseate spoonbill, are exciting to see too. Small sharks grazing over the bay grass are neat to watch. Seahorses and other critters in the bay grass can be fun to study. I have to say that a horseshoe crab can be very interesting because it is one of the oldest animals in Florida Bay. Shaped like a aerodynamic army tank with a tail, the horseshoe crab is a living fossil design dated to over 250 million years ago - older than the dinosaurs. An ancient anthropoid sea spider with copper based blood, this animal looks something like a live trilobite. On the enviro-tours we almost always find one and carefully pick it up and examined their features without harm.
Reporter 1: When is the best time of year to take your enviro-tours?
Duane: Anytime when the wind is not blowing hard which stirs up the bay bottom and reduces visibility. The average depth where we go is only three or four feet. Summer time is nice. In between cold fronts, winter can be nice also. Since we only really have two seasons here, anytime can be the best time to see the views of Florida Bay and the Everglades.
Reporter 2: Your LOST FOUNTAIN book project is apparently finished now and reveals some of the history of Florida Bay. How does one acquire a copy and learn about your new research findings regarding the "fountain of youth" legend?
Duane: Check out the bottom of the INTRODUCTION section from the main SPIRIT OF ATLANTIS homepage website and there is a link to more information regarding the LOST FOUNTAIN book project.
END TENTH INTERVIEW 7/00
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